Since I have made the deliberate decision to raise a trilingual baby so many realizations have blossomed especially as I near the end of my pregnancy. So, as a result, what did I do? I did what aspiring doctoral students do best: research about trilingualism and parenting. In fact, I found a way to combine this interest with one of my graduate courses and am in the process of creating an annotated bibliography about trilingualism, which I am more than happy to share. I want to know as much as I can about raising a trilingual baby before I invest my life, time, and energy in harvesting a fun and multilingual home.

There are two influential factors that I was not aware of prior to making this ambitious commitment. They include: community demographics and the effect of the role each parent plays in raising bilingual or trilingual children. That being said, my plan has been slightly modified. The goal is still trilingualism, but the route there will be…hmm… many things. I plan to include adventure, creativeness, and interesting practices. I am also sure I will be conducting more research as my baby grows into a little person with unique personality traits that will call for alternative methods.

According to Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert’s article, Issues Surrounding Trilingual Families: Children with simultaneous exposure to three languages, children acquire three languages in three stages. They go through a monolingual, to a bilingual, and to finally a trilingual stage. Usually children learn the primary caregivers language from 0-2 years of age (being monolinguals), then during their pre-school years they “catch-up” to the second parents’ language, which is considered the bilingual stage, and finally at the school age children acquire the third language. This description applies to a child who has been exposed to three languages simultaneously, which will not be our case as initially planned.

I also learned that most individuals are not FULLY trilingual!!! In other words, one language is usually considered the weaker of the three due to community demographics and the fact that children pick up on which language is the minority or the majority language, which usually also includes one of them being the more “prestigious” language. You can probably guess which one of these takes precedence for the child naturally.

As I have been reading the book, Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven by Xiao-lei Wang, I have also learned that a community’s demographics can play a pivotal role in helping parents determine which trilingual path is best for their family. We live in a nearly bilingual community in central Texas. Wang mentions that most trilinguals usually aren’t equally proficient in speaking, reading, and writing in all three languages unless they have parents who are both native speakers of different languages and they are living in a country where an additional language is spoken. Additionally, the parents’ level of education also plays a factor in terms of achieving a “fully” trilingual environment.

To say the least, there are several scenarios where trilinguals emerge from, but most of the ones I have found have been in Europe where being multilingual is almost a necessity. We are certainly up for a challenge by attempting to raise a trilingual child in a country where being bilingual alone is uncommon, but that of course is changing. To add to the complexity of our goal we are two parents who are bilingual in the same languages. Although, in my opinion, if monolingual parents can raise bilingual children, why can’t bilingual parents raise trilingual children, right?If there is a will, there is way! ¡Si se puede! Impossible n’est pas français.

That being said, my husband, Marcus, and I decided to alter our trilingual plan in order to accommodate what would best be supported by our local community. We still plan on speaking to our bebita in Spanish at home, but instead of enrolling her in a French immersion school as initially planned we will have her attend a bilingual Spanish-English school. We opted for introducing French through isolated activities such as with books and music. We think it is important for her to learn, love, and appreciate the Spanish we our passing on to her. In other words, since one of the three languages will likely take on a weaker role in terms of proficiency, we would much rather have it be French. She may very well become what they call a “late trilingual.” Another suggestion that has been made to us by a friend who considers herself quadrilingual is to immerse our baby girl in French schools during the summer in a French-speaking country, if possible, while exposing her to it the best we can the rest of the year.

So, as I near the end of my pregnancy, my mind is still stirring as to how we will attempt to raise a trilingual baby. I consider it part of the nesting phase, mine just happens to include a non-tangible component: trilingualism!

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While I appreciate all the research (I usually do the same being that I research for a living), I must say that I disagree with strategy. Frankly, I don’t see why you wouldn’t expose your child to the third language from the beginning. I’m a mom to a trilingual 4 year old living in the US. Yes, there are dominant and weaker languages… but he can fully express himself in all three. Most importantly, my son can communicate with family members from both sides (Spanish and Portuguese) and has “picked up” English at school and can communicate perfectly well with his classmates and teachers. I remember being pregnant and fretting about many of the same things you wrote about. Now that I’m on this side of the experience I can tell you that you may want to consider your extinct and give it a little more credit. All I can say is that while I know there is no one path that is right for everyone… persistence and consistency in communicating and requiring that your child communicate back in the minority language/s is one of the few truths I am certain about in this experience of raising multi-lingual children.

hiya! thanks for posting your reply! i’m also raising my infant trilingually (spanish/english/french) & since she’s still only 10 months, i’ve wondered if all this hard work is truly paying off. i’t's encouraging to hear from someone with a success story!!! i’ve a question or two for you though (if you don’t mind)…how did you do it logistically? my baby gets french mornings, spanish afternoons, & english here & there. sound good? also, did you ‘read’ the same picture books in all 3 languages? i do that but wonder if she’s getting confused with the exact same material being used in all languages. thanks in advance for your reply!

Suzanne, if you are living in Austin you’re not far from us in Houston. I’ve noticed there are some neighborhoods here where English is the dominant language of the playground, but we’ve chosen to locate ourselves in a neighborhood where I’ve observed non-Hispanic kids on the playground understanding some Spanish just from being surrounded by it. Around here there are plenty of kids in the local high school who are perfectly fluent in English but speak to each other in Spanish by choice. As an experienced mom (although my toddler is the first one I’m raising bilingual) I can tell you as a baby becomes a medium-sized child and teenager, their influences will come more and more from outside the home. We never stop being the parents but it’s just inevitable that over time, “Mommy and me” activities start to take a back seat.
I really think you hit the nail on the head with mentioning the “prestige” factor.
If you are in Texas I would think you could take steps to increase the chances your child as she grows will enjoy linking herself up with activities and people in the local community, besides school, that will nurture Spanish. It’s likely she’d see the usefulness for herself, not only as something her parents want for her. I think you’d have to work a lot harder to keep French going in the middle-school years and beyond, if your home is the only source of it. If she goes to elementary school immersed in French she would build an extremely solid foundation in French before hitting those “tween” and teen years.

Our family is in a situation very similar to the one that you are describing. Our oldest (four) is completely fluent in Spanish as it is our home language. His second language, English, is quickly catching up and we just recently added French. My husband and I are both fluent English and Spanish speakers. Neither one of us knows French so we are learning it along side our sons. While I would love for him to attend a French immersion school, it is not possible because of the outrageous cost. I am aware that French will be the weakest of his three languages but I will continue to look for more opportunities for exposure. My oldest currently attends a Spanish immersion preschool. Unless we find an educational choice to fit our trilingual needs, I will be homeschooling my son after preschool.
.-= Adriana´s last blog ..Toys my children ACTUALLY play with- Sharing =-.

Suzanne, would you mind sharing the French resources and children’s books you have found in your future posts? I, too, am trying to raise my kids trilingual though I only took two years of French in high school a long, long time ago. I have been searching what children’s books are available at Bookstores and Amazon.com but it would be nice to know what I’m looking for specifically. And thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

hey there. i don’t know if you’ll still read this but i’m also raising my infant trilingually (spanish/english/french). to answer your question about locating children’s french materials, try http://www.frenchbooksonline.com. i’ve bought several board & audio books from them (some of which contain songs) & they’re imported directly from france. the selection is great, the prices are decent & shipping is free (within the u.s.), plus i’ve been given discount coupons. i hope this helps!!!

I´ve always toyed around with the idea of introducing French to my daughter, I just don´t want to send her to a french-immersion as it is too important to us that she´s fully bilingual and biliterate in Spanish.
I should follow your lead, Suzanne, and definitely take advantage of all the wonderful resources available to at least introduce the sounds of French at this sponge-stage.

I loved this post. I was raised bilingual (my Mother is Mexican and my Dad American) with my Mom speaking exclusively in Spanish and my Dad in English. In first grade, my school offered French and Spanish, and since my Mom was teaching me how to read and write in addition to speaking Spanish, they enrolled me in French class. Unfortunately, I ended up changing school districts and wasn’t exposed to French until 7th grade but the foundation was laid! I picked up on French very easily and continued throughout high school eventually taking the AP exam and placing out of French in college. I loved languages and kept with it… Only this time, I decided I wanted to learn the language of love – Italian! I ended up doing a study abroad in Siena and truly became fluent in Italian… to the point where my French became rusty. I still graduated with honors and with excellent fluency in Romance Languages (with concentrations in Italian and French). My point in all this is to say that exposing children to two different languages really makes it easy for them to pick up and retain new languages. The key, and here’s the rub, is to practice. If you don’t use it, you lose it. I now have a family of my own (Siena, 4, and Christian, 9 mos. to whom I exclusively speak in Spanish) and we vacation from time to time in St. Martin… And there I can practice my French. It takes a day or two, but then it all comes back Abrazos, Jennifer

I think you are so right, Jennifer, on several points. Once the foundation for learning different languages is set, it just makes it easier. And you’re absolutely right that one needs to use it or lose it.

Please share your bibliography on trilingualism when it is prepared. I would love to learn more.

We are raising our sons trilingual. I speak to them in Spanish and my husband speaks to them in German. My husband and I speak to each other in English. It is amazing how well my two and half year old can move between languages.

Good luck on your own trilingual journey, and please share what you learn.

It’s Suzanne. I finally figured out how to leave comments….easy task…long story. I have been wanting to say THANK YOU. Thank you for sharing YOUR stories, your thoughts…they inspire me. I’m getting a little nervous about our “trilingual journey” as my due date approaches. I am looking for iphone spanish language apps and online french classes for me.

As far as the annotated bibliography Im waiting to get it back from my professor. I want to edit it, but do want to say that I learned a lot. A lot of what I’m sure the “experts” have and will share about multilingualism.

I’m following this post with interest. We too are raising our daughter trilingually (well, if you include sign language, 4 languages!). I speak to my daughter and husband in English, her care provider speaks to her in Spanish and my husband speaks to her in Hindi. We also use signs which she still uses for some words or to reinforce some words (Please, thank you, sorry.) We are moving to India in two months where she will be exposed to Hindi and English on a constant basis and I’m trying to figure out how to make sure she doesn’t lose both the receptive and productive Spanish she’s learned (songs, numbers, letters, and some words) as it’s important to me having grown up in California and we’re also planning on returning in a few years.

I speak Spanish (not fluent by a long shot, but conversational) and wondering if I should start speaking Spanish, playing music and and reading her books in Spanish with her? I’m definitely hoping to find Spanish speaking mom and kid playgroups in Delhi but not sure if that is possible.

Dear Sina,
I started out speaking to my son all in English and after noticing how much English was dominating, have moved to speaking with him in Spanish more, although I am not a native speaker. I stay within 1 language at a time (1 sentence at a time) so he is still getting the model of the language without mixing. I have found that my own Spanish is getting more spontaneous and comfortable. Reading aloud to him in Spanish is really helping me especially as he is growing into more complicated story books.
I know it is important to provide a good model, not a “broken” version. But our son must have gotten enough of a quality “native” or “pure” input of either language from either me or others, despite the mistakes he hears me making in Spanish (and that is happening every time I talk with my husband’s family, where I have no choice but to stay in Spanish whether or not I’m completely being correct).
At 3-1/2 he is doing fine in language skills. He’s already reading short words which freaks me out. He even makes jokes with me or other people he knows are bilingual that play with the words of both languages.
I would encourage you not to think you must do all or nothing. I would also say that whatever you start out doing, you can always adjust your strategy when you see that one language or other is lagging for her.
And definitely check out Pocoyo en español on Youtube!

Hi, Just a tip based on the many bilinguals I have known. Those who tried to speak English to their children at home (to supposedly facilitate their learning), even though it was not their native language, ended up with children who spoke English with their accent. If you’d like your children to speak a language without an accent, then I’d stick to speaking to them only in your native language. It’s better to find a caregiver, or audio tapes, videos to teach them native pronunciation and correct grammar.

But there is also the question of how much money you want to, or can spend. If your resources are limited, I’d recommend starting teaching the child a new language not before the age of 2 or 3 (when he or she can already speak one language decently) or even later, but it’s a good idea to start before puberty, around which time language learning skills seem to diminish. The thing to remember is that for language learning to be useful and “permanent”, the child has to continuously use the language to not lose it. So if you start at age 2, then calculate having to pay for learning every year until he becomes an adult! Even as an adult, you can lose a language if you don’t use it regularly, although it’s somewhat more permanent than for a child. That being said, starting a language early, and “losing” it often still makes it easier to relearn it later.

The wonderful thing about language learning (and knowledge maintenance) today is the internet – it’s so much easier (and cheaper) nowadays to find media, films, and even connect with native speakers online than in the pre-internet world.

Though a word of caution; there is some evidence that for children who don’t speak yet, showing films or playing tapes is pretty much useless, as they don’t seem to respond to it like to real live people. On the other hand my experience is that our child, who doesn’t speak yet, responds to people on the screen through Skype exactly like to a live person.

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Suzanne Garcia Mateus is the proud mami of a one-plus-year old little girl whom she is ambitiously trying to raise with three languages. Her research interests as a doctoral student in bilingual and bicultural education and life experiences growing up with Mexican immigrant parents inspired her to create a blog, Interpretations of a Bilingual Life, in order to better understand the rich nuances that living with multiple languages offers.